The present invention relates to the field of photograph-based identification systems.
The use of photograph-based identification (xe2x80x9cphoto IDxe2x80x9d) systems is pervasive. Drivers"" licenses, passports, visas, government employee cards, immigration documents, and now, more frequently, credit cards and cash transaction cards carry a photograph of the card bearer for identification purposes. Many industries require that their employees carry photo ID on the job.
Fraudulent use of photo ID systems may occur where, for example, an otherwise legitimate passport is modified such that the original photograph is swapped with that of another person, thereby enabling the other person to travel, at least temporarily, under the guise of the original passport holder.
Even in the absence of photograph swapping or alteration, it is oftentimes difficult to confirm by inspection that the individual depicted in the photograph of the identification card is indeed the bearer of the card.
One aspect of this invention provides for enhanced security and certainty in the use of photo ID documents.
An illustrative embodiment of the present invention is a method of correlating, with a photograph, information about an individual whose image appears in the photograph. The method includes steganographically encoding multi-bit information into the photograph. This encoding serves to add noise to the photographxe2x80x94noise that is not generally perceptible as a representation of the multi-bit information except by computer analysis. (The encoded photograph appears to convey only an image of the individual to viewers of the photograph.) Sometime after encoding, the multi-bit information is decoded. Finally, some sort of authentication decision about the individual is made, based at least in part on the multi-bit information decoded from the photograph.
Another illustrative embodiment of the present invention is a substrate (e.g. a card, or a page from a magazine) with a photograph. The photograph is steganographically encoded with multi-bit data related to the photograph. This data is manifested as a slight snow effect that is not generally perceptible as a representation of the multi-bit data except by computer analysis. The multi-bit data can serve various purposes (e.g. identify an owner of the photograph; serve as a serial number index into a database, etc.).
The foregoing and other aspects of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings.